Lilies
by Writer Worrall
Summary: Post HBP. Hermione is ready to take controle of her life and wants an apprenticeship but how much is she willing to pay for it? And who will save draco from the the death eater auctions? Dramione, HPBZ. Sorry On HAITUS, possibly abandoned.
1. 1 Price of Apprenticeship

A/N: Emily, thank you for betaing this for me- you're a godsend. Or something similar considering I'm atheist. Readers, any mistake left or bad writing style is purely my own, she's done a wonderful job! I shall have to lock her up somewhere so she cannot run out on me. Readers; thankyou for… well… reading!

Dedication: This is for Lilly. We had a wicked time in Barcelona where she stole all my free time by making me her own personal writing and having me do her a Dramione (represses a grimace). She also bete'd my written work while I we were there. To a great friend and a fellow writer and fanfic reader!

Disclaimer: JK is my goddess. I follow her faithfully, even if I do occasionally have her characters commit sins in my writing ;). The world is hers and we all love her for it. I'm simply having a little play. I make neither money nor anything else from this with the exception of the pleasure of writing and possible reviews. No copyright infringement intended!

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Chapter 1- Price of Apprenticeship

It was quite remarkable really, that Harry had done it. It had been a struggle, many had died on both sides; dear Ginny, George, Dennis Creevey, Hannah Abbot, Mrs Weasley, and Hagrid were among the casualties on their side. Lucius Malfoy, Rookwood, both the Lestranges and several dozen much lower ranking death eaters on the other.

Hermione had not come out unscathed off course. The dark red angry scar, which ran from her cheek to her waist, was nothing compared to the terrible grief that had gripped at her since the war- slowly turning her insides to shreds. Time is a healer. Well. She'd scoffed at that phrase when her dad had tried to comfort her. The hurt of loosing so many close friends was so real it seemed impossible that it would ever go away, or even lessen. Worse yet was that she had had to keep it hidden inside when ever she was with friends (those that were still alive at any rate) because she was supposed to be the calm logical one, and she could tell the others need her to be strong. Especially Harry. Her father was right though; time did heal her. A slow and painful year after the war and grief had stopped shredding her from within. Two years later and those rips in her were healing. She was starting to feel herself again.

Two years since the war. Two years of rebuilding. Two years of helping the ministry. Two years of helping the sick. Two years of rounding up death eaters. Two years of building funds for witches and wizards left in poverty. Two years later. Two years later and Hermione was finally ready to fallow her own desires. She'd done her bit to help, far more than many others in fact, and would still help when she could of course. Now she was healed inside, healed enough at least.

An apprenticeship. That is what she wanted; preferably in potions, though she would probably be contented with Transfiguration or Ancient Runes.

Potions however, caused a problem- Snape. Dumbledor's murderer- except it had been more euthanasia considering Dumbledor had ordered Snape to do it, even to the extent of bringing in a life debt. It had all come out in his trial with the help of some memories Dumbledor had left behind to be viewed in a pensieve, even the fact the Snape had tried to persuade Dumbledor to let him die rather than killing him. No, Snape's spying history wasn't the problem at all.

It was Snape himself that gave Hermione cause to rethink what she was about to do. He was well known for being as bitter as ever, if not more so. Hermione seriously doubted he was about to take golden trios appointed know-it-all on as his apprentice. Unfortunately for Hermione, however, he was probably the greatest potions master in the country (who was still young enough to take an apprentice and not at deaths door) and Hermione was damned if she'd through away the chance of learning from the best.

Well, that had been her reasoning at any rate. It was quite different standing outside the door to his quarters feeling remarkably like a schoolgirl again, even if she did lack the school robes and Griffindor crest.

_Oh well, might as well grab the bull by the horns, or the hippogriff by the talons if you prefer wizarding terminology…_

She knocked.

"Enter."

She opened the door. Snape's office was much as it had been in her youth, with slimey potions ingredients lining the walls. Snape himself was to be found sitting behind his desk marking essays. He gestured to the chair opposite with out looking up. Hermione sat down smoothing her dark green layered robes with brown embroidery. Her hair had been pulled back and tamed into a plait with a few curls falling down to frame her face. A glamour covered the scar on her face, not so much out of vanity, but Hermione found it made things easier and less uncountable for other people she was talking to. It was almost habit for her to spell one on each morning now. Almost.

Snape on the other hand, looked much as he always had- sallow skin, hooked nose, little beady black eyes and matching black curtains of hair falling across them, greasy from potion making.

"Miss Nerggra-" He started to say looking up, then gave a start when he saw who was sitting in front of him. His eyes past over what would have been visible of her scar had it not been for the glamour. _Can he see it?_ Hermione wondered uncertainly, when his eyes still lingered there for a few seconds she started to feel ever so slightly out of her depth. She wasn't used to people commenting on it any more. But when Snape spoke it was as though the moment had not happened.

"Miss Granger" He sneered "I cannot begin to imagine what might motivate you to _grace me with your company_" the sarcasm on that phrase was hard to miss "but you would have done better to make an appointment, I am currently expecting some one."

"You were expecting Nihomiere Nerggra, correct?" Hermione asked patiently. Snape stared at her, frowning for a few seconds before sighing and leaning back in his chair.

"I had assumed the strange name was due to the owner of it being foreign, but I suppose it is an anagram. Perhaps you would elucidate your reason for contacting me under a false name?"

" I hardly expected you to talk with me about the possibility of an apprenticeship if you knew it was the 'granger know-it-all' whom you were in contact with"

"The fact that I wish to have no further contact with the majority of my former students, let alone one of the golden trio, is really rather a truism as you just implied. So now that I have confirmed your supposition perhaps you would desist of this façade and leave?" His words had that old dangerous yet silky quality to them, but it didn't intimidate Hermione, not any more at least.

"I could but I will not," Hermione replied stubbornly, folding her arms across her chest, "you know full well that if I were any one else my marks would have you seriously considering me by now!"

"Perhaps." He allowed grudgingly. "But as it _is_ you I am not. Now cease wasting my time and get out!" He snarled, his patients apparently worn thin.

"Not until you consider me based on my merits rather than the title being friends with Harry has given me," she calmly refused.

"Miss Granger!" Snape barked standing up to tower over her from the other side of the desk, "This is becoming tedious! Go and find Minerva or Sinistra to pester, I am sure either would not turn down your _brains_- but I will not take you on as my apprentice! How can I make that more clear? Leave. Now!"

_Oh for Morgana's sake! _Hermione thought irritated. _What's it going to take to get this git to listen? Desperate times call for desperate measures: time to appeal to his slytherin side. _

"I'm sure you could think of _some_ reason to reconsider," she suggested innocently then blushed realising how that could be interpreted "that is, I mean-"

Snape's disgusted snort told her that he had understood the reason for her embarrassment.

"I suggest in future you rephrase such offers." He drawled, but then to her surprise he sat down once more and gazed at her thoughtfully. "As it happens though, there may be something you can help me with. You are aware, I assume, that the death eater trials are nearing an end?"

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A/N: I hope that's grabbed your interest… rateing is for later on but I'm generally bad at ratings so I was being safe. I hope you enjoyed it! Feedback/comments/concrit warmly welcomed.


	2. 2 Mistake On My Arm

Disclaimer: The Harry Potter series should be a religion, with JK as its goddess. I bow humbly before her superiority…. What was my original point? Oh yes; the universe and characters are hers.

A/N: Once again, my profound thanks to my beta Emily, who helped me to fit in more description with out disrupting the flow of conversation. Any mistakes left, or bad writing generally left is my fault not hers. Thanks Emily!

Chapter 2: Mistake on my Arm

"Rise and shine little death eater scum!" One of the morning guards, a middle aged man, called jovially to death eaters in their cells. "Your day of reckoning is finally here!"

"Death eaters don't shine." His partner, a young sounding woman pointed out in amusement "If anything, they absorb light"

"Well I couldn't really call out 'Rise and absorb light little death eater scum' now could I? Just doesn't have the same ring to it." The man argued

"Yeah…" The younger guard said slowly, the almost childish spring in her step clashing incongruously with her conceited air of superiority. The girls short, rich blond hair contrasting against her heavily tanned skin was dishevelled in a way that could only have been purposefully achieved, and her tall broad build meant she seemed to crowd the corridor, the shorter, slightly chubby older guard pushed to one side. "But who ever said it had to have a good ring to it?"

"Good point." The first nodded sincerely, and then "Rise and absorb light little death eater scum, your day of reckoning is finally here!"

Draco groaned as the two guards chuckled at their slightly dim-witted joke and moved on past his cell that was in the rather nastier end of the prison. Considering all of the prison was hardly 5 star luxury that was saying something.

"You would have thought," He muttered loud enough so that Blaise Zabinni, who was on the top of the bunk they shared, could hear him through the mattress, "that after two years they would have come up with a more interesting insult than 'little death eater scum' wouldn't you."

"You are a fool if you did Draco." Blaise answered and the mattress squeaked in complaint as he sat up, and the framework of the bunk groaned as he carefully made his way down.

Ducking his head slightly so as not to hit it, Draco sat up also.

"They are half wits," Blaise continued, "'dunderheads' I believe Snape would have called them. They can no more come up with new insults than match an arithmancy master in a debate about the result of a rather difficult equation. Why else would they be working as prison guards?"

"Maybe it was there life time ambition?" Draco suggested innocently and Blaise's head turned towards the direction of the sound of his voice. Draco thought that some how, no matter how much time he spent with the man he now considered a close friend, he would never get used to the glazed, almost dead look in his eyes. Eyes which were currently pointing just above his right shoulder.

"Ah yes, ambition," Blaise said his head turning back as he carefully felt around for his day wear prison uniform and began to change, "what we slytherins are famous for."

"Hardly," Draco countered standing up and getting changed also, ignoring the cut in the robe sleeves that had been purposefully designed to show the dark mark, "slytherins are famous for being evil scheming bastards… whether its true or not."

"We're also famous for being sly pure-bloods." Blaise said, although his features creased with a slightly distasteful and sour expression

"Not that that's true of course," Draco muttered "at least a third of the house is made up of half-bloods and muggle-borns"

"Prejudice not coming back I hope, Draco?" Blaise asked lightly but Draco could tell that underneath the slightly scathing voice was an undercurrent of fear.

"What do you mean?" Draco asked tucking a strand of what had been fine platinum blond, but was now an almost ratty grey, hair behind his ear. That wasn't the only change to his appearance Draco had endured since being on the run and in prison. The wiry hair was also longer and lank. His undernourished body looked slightly skeletal and heavy bags were painted under his eyes like drapes.

"I can remember a time," Blaise said as though considering his words carefully, leaning against the wall and folding his arms, "when the description 'sly pure-blooded slytherin' would have made you very proud of yourself. Considering that we're about to be-" he paused, "considering what's going to happen today, that's hardly the wisest attitude to take."

"Oh come off it Blaise!" Draco rebuked irritated "You know full well as I do that I only took the bloody mark because my mother's life was threatened." He ran a hand agitatedly through his hair and muttered more to himself "fat lot of good that did me now she's insane in St. Mungos."

"I'm just saying that unlike me, there _was_ a time when you believed in the pure-blood ideals crap-"

"I _could_ say the same about you." Draco pointed out.

"No you couldn't" Blaise argued coldly "There was a reason I kept to myself a lot, and that's because it was rather tiresome pretending to believe in that shit all the time."

"Yeah, yeah, and you only took the mark because 'you had no choice'. I _know, _all right? We're in the same boat as far as that's concerned."

"Hmmm."

"How many times Blaise?" Draco snapped "I had something of a paradigm shift the night Dumbledore died and my views on what it means to be a wizard changed after that!"

"Calm down Draco." Blaise said sounding somewhat apologetic "It's just what's happening today. It's got me a bit… edgy. Any of the deatheaters who goes to that- that- _hypocritical event_ still hung up on the quality of blood is likely to end up a lot worse for wear in the long run."

"Won't that happen anyway?" Draco said thinking that the reason he was in such a temper was probably the same as Blaise's.

Blaise shrugged helplessly, his tightly folded arms and hunched shoulders betraying his worry and resignation. "Depends on who you end up with."

Personally, Draco was more worried Blaise than himself. He may have the Malfoy name, but his father was far better known, and therefore much more hated. Blaise was blind. That really only left him in the hands of two possible futures: vengeful, or sadistic.

Draco looked dully around the depressing little cell with its 4 grey walls and toilet in the corner. The rather cool air and damp atmosphere was joined by a human stench that made up the stale, concentrated feel of the cell. Occasional noises from either side of the thick walls could be heard, but mostly there was a suppressing silence that laid thick over the little room, like a heavy blanket. The walls to touch were grimy, even with damp slime in places. In a word, it was disgusting; was this a better hell than where he was headed?

"Draco?"

Draco brought himself out of his musings "Hmmm, yeah Blaise?"

"I said do you suppose we'll meet again after this day?" He sounded melancholic.

"I doubt it." He said feeling even more horrible than before.

"Well then." Blaise said pushing against the wall with his back to stand up strait. He took a few hesitant steps forwards, eyes gazing just a little too low, and held out his hand a bit to far to the right. Draco shook it, each taking the strength that the other provided. They were survivors. They'd get through this.

Nothing more was said between them. It didn't need to be. They both understood what the faced, and they both understood that the strong friendship they'd forged in prison would be missed.

After all, what more could be said? They hardly needed hufflepufian hysterics.

A/N: Reviews/concrit warmly welcomed –cough- especially as I know several people put this story on their alerts but didn't review –cough-

Also I apologise for the long wait. I love to write but I have problems with the actual getting on with it part. Does that make sense?


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